Obviously apostate dubs at one time did believe that there was a solid foundation of our faith otherwise you wouldn't have spent those many years trying to convince others that you had the truth. Many of you were elders, ministerial servants, pioneers, and some even anointed. Where you that stupid?
At one time I also believed that there was a Santa Claus. As I became more aware of the facts, I came to understand that teaching to be false.
A similar argument might be put to all JW's who were formerly of other religions. Did they not at one time believe that there was a solid basis for believing in their former religion? But Jehovah's Witnesses brought them information that they were previously unaware of, which convinced them that the JW's had the truth. The problem is that, at that point, the organization expects new converts to stop considering new information that might result in a change in belief. "Independent thinking" is forbidden, once you have come to accept Watchtower teaching. The call of Jehovah's Witnesses to others to "examine the teachings of any religious organization with which you are associated" is lost on the Witnesses themselves.
Jehovah's Witnesses present themselves well to someone who has little or no knowledge of the Bible, and, even more to the point, to one who has little or no knowledge of the JW organization itself. How many baptismal candidates, thinking they are getting into the organization just in time to survive Armageddon, realize that the end has been "just around the corner" for 125 years now, and that, in fact, the organization has repeatedly predicted specific dates for Armageddon without success? I certainly didn't know any of that when I was baptized in 1969. But everyone was telling me that the end was coming by 1975, and I had made it to the safety of the organization just in time. Of course, nothing happened in 1975. Now, I see people becoming JW's who have never even heard of 1975, and if they do hear about it, it is made to sound as if it was just a few brothers on the "fringe" who got that idea, and that the organization never said or implied such a thing. Those of us who lived through that time know otherwise.
The point is that Jehovah's Witnesses are, and always have been, deceptive in their recruiting, in many, many ways. Prospective converts will hear only positives about the Society. Negatives, no matter how compelling, will never be mentioned. A baptismal candidate is likely never to have heard about the pedophile scandals, the UN-NGO issue or the organization's history of false prophecies, or a dozen other scandals. If they know about them at all, it will not be because they heard it from the Witness who studied with them or other JW sources; likely it will have been from the "forbidden" internet or the news media.
Even more to the point: A baptismal candidate may know that JW's are not supposed to take blood transfusions. But will he really understand that he will be expected to lay down his life for this teaching, or face disfellowshipping? A baptismal candidate may know that JW's can be disfellowshipped and shunned for immoral practices, but does he really understand that he can also be disfellowshipped simply for disagreeing with the organization's teachings in any area? Do you think that, if they were made aware of these things, many baptismal candidates would reconsider joining this organization?
By keeping these things hidden, the JW's manage to get many recruits who would never join if they were fully informed. Once inside, they are subject to massive peer pressure and threat of shunning by friends and family to keep them in line. I can certainly say with complete honesty, if I had known before I was baptized all that I now know about the JW organization, I would never have become a part of it. Many others who post here are in the same situation.
Ironically, one of the strongest evidences that we do indeed possess the true faith is the existence of apostates themselves.
That is no evidence at all. Most JW's are themselves "apostates" from other religions. Does that mean that these other religions also possess the "true faith"? The only difference is that most other religions do not "beat their brothers" who have left the fold the way that the JW organization does.
there are imposters who are like Jannes and Jambres who resisted Moses, "men completely corrupted in mind, disapproved as regards the faith," whose "madness will be very plain to all."
One could argue that Jehovah's Witnesses themselves are such imposters, having apostatized from the faith of true Christianity as taught in the Bible, and descended into the worship of an organization of men.
